Shadow on the Sun
by Miss-Murdered
Summary: After Duo's death, Heero becomes a scientist aboard a sun research facility called the Solar. In a month of unusual solar activity, he starts seeing Duo again and Heero has to consider his sanity or whether there is way that Duo can be alive. 1x2x1
1. Shadow on the Sun

Disclaimer: I don't own

Pairings: 1x2x1 and background 3x4

Warnings: m/m sexual relations, angst, death fic that is not quite a death fic, some swearing

A/N: So that ended up being the world's shortest hiatus due to some wonderful people. This fic is a long time in the making as I started it in October 2012 and then disbanded it due to the intensity of the plot and being unable to do it justice at the time. However, it never quite left me so it nagged at me to complete it.

It is complete but I am not going to a guarantee an update schedule. I need to edit it a lot due to the big time frame between writing parts of it so I will update when I'm happy with a chapter rather than a set day. But I won't take too long, promise.

It is heavily inspired by the films _Solaris, Moon _and _Sunshine_ and the title is taken from the Audioslave song _Shadow on the Sun - _as per usual, songs inspired chapters and will be noted.

Finally, I failed science at school and though I have done quite a bit of research about the sun and activity - this is fan fiction and I have only done so much. So this is a lot of fantasy. Okay - that's enough rambling from me...!

* * *

**Chapter One **

**Shadow on the Sun**

* * *

**_~ And I can tell you why people die alone_**

**_I can tell you I'm the shadow on the sun_**

**_Shadow on the Sun - Audioslave ~_**

* * *

The low humming sound of the Solar gradually broke into the sleeping Heero Yuy's consciousness. The research station was never quiet. There was a constant sound from the life support systems so it was only in sleep that he could escape the mechanical sounds. Blue eyes gradually flickered open to stare at the cold metallic ceiling above and then turned towards the bright green clock that illuminated the entire prison cell of a room.

There was little need for time in a deep space research facility as there were no defined day light hours nor defined night time hours. It all blended together. However, if a routine that mimicked the earth was kept then at least the time on the Solar didn't become meaningless passages of minutes, hours and days. A routine had to be maintained otherwise time itself became nothing.

The clock showed 6.34am in glowing numerals. He slowly moved his body from lying to sitting on the edge of the bunk and ran fingers through his chocolate brown hair. His feet met the cold harshness of the metal flooring and the jolt to his system banished the rest of the sleepiness and lethargy from his limbs.

He'd slept more than he should. More than he ever did. And he'd been dreaming. He knew that much but the dreams had flittered away as he drifted into reality and waking. He'd been left with an uncomfortable thought that he'd been dreaming about _him_. About blue eyes. About a braid. A smirk.

His hand drifted to the cross around his neck and felt the solid metal in his fingers and then looked back at the clock. The time perturbed him more than the dreams. It had been rare for him to sleep beyond his required six hours. Doctor J's training and his life as a soldier had led him to only ever sleep six hours. He had tried to recondition his body to require more rest but even after battles, even after living with a lover with an insatiable libido, even after days without sleep – he still slept six hours.

He'd slept 34 minutes longer. An insignificant amount of time but it was starting to equate to something concerning. And he was dreaming. He'd never dreamt up until this last month.

Shaking his head, he rose to the small, connected bathroom, turning on the harsh bright light and allowing his light deprived eyes a moment to adjust. He continued to go through the mechanics of his usual routine. He showered in the tiny cubicle, taking as little time as possible. The water heating system was temperamental at best and since a particularly bad flare had not worked properly. He'd long since accepted that the Solar was not the most comfortable place and he liked it. He was on the frontier of space and it would feel wrong to live in the lap of luxury. There was something about the constant struggle, the repairs and upgrades to the systems, that made him feel useful. The most useful he'd felt since the war.

After the shower he looked at himself briefly in the mirror. He had not shaved for four days and stubble had formed. He brushed his fingers over his jaw and thought about completing the mundane chore but then decided not to bother. There was no one to see him and he had no plans on making any vidcalls. There was no other soul aboard the Solar. No one to impress or bother with.

He would have shaved if he needed to make a vidcall. If he needed to contact Doctor Hoffman. If he wanted to talk to Relena, Quatre, Trowa or Wufei. In his first three months aboard the Solar, he had grown a beard after realising it was an unnecessary waste of time to shave when he was alone aboard a space research facility. Apparently, though, his friends thought that growing a beard alone aboard a space station was a sign of madness.

Needless to say when Quatre had threatened to call Doctor Hoffman and suggest that he was losing his sanity, Heero had decided to shave every time he spoke to any of his friends. He didn't understand why they thought this – it was a logical thing to him – but somehow they thought his lack of "taking care of himself" was aligned with insanity. Heero still didn't understand people. Completing his morning routine, he brushed his teeth and then entered his tiny sleeping quarters to find clothing.

He dressed in shorts and a black t-shirt patterned with a grey faded anchor and two nautical stars to either side. It was a size small and tight fitting but it had not originally belonged to him. Many of the t-shirts in his meagre supply of clothing did not belong to him. He normally took a medium due to his broad shoulders and toned chest but the smalls fit. A little tight but they fit. No one saw him on the Solar so no one could comment. He liked that.

Heero exited his sleeping quarters and as soon as he stepped out into the corridor the lights flickered on and a disembodied female voice spoke.

"Good morning He-ro."

The control system and artificial intelligence was his only company aboard the Solar and it struggled to say his name. He had reprogrammed the system and done some major modifications to it so that it was to his own specifications. It no longer monitored movement in the sleeping quarters or in the connecting small bathroom. Heero had found it odd and creepy that the artificial intelligence system could spy at him at all times so had disabled some of those features.

However, while he had tried to stop the female voice from saying his name as "hero" rather than "Heero" he had been unsuccessful. Instead, it said "he" pause "ro" which was not any improvement. He guessed that whoever recorded the original dialogue for the system had simply not recorded something near his name and no matter how hard he tried, the system was not going to say his name correctly. He'd now accepted that.

"Good morning," he replied as he walked down the corridor, lights turning on around him as he did.

Previous scientists aboard the Solar spoke frequently to the system and it had been nicknamed DORIS after the acronym – Data Organisation for Research Information System. Heero had originally refused to speak to the machine finding it odd that he was talking to a series of code as though it was a human being. He'd always thought that Duo had been crazy for talking to Deathscythe, his buddy, and how he'd humanised a machine. At least the Gundams had been humanoid in appearance, he supposed, rather than the artificial intelligence system he spoke to now. Heero figured that after nearly a year and half aboard the Solar, if he hadn't spoken to DORIS he would've lost all concept of conversation and would've withdrawn further into a world of silence. That was probably why the Solar had DORIS. So that the scientist aboard the research station didn't lose all pattern of normal interaction.

The Solar itself was a small space facility due to its location as close to the sun as was possible. It was small as the reinforced exterior had to be heat proof to an extreme degree and was only meant for one permanent scientist. There were the sleeping quarters, an area that could be generously called a kitchen, a recreation room with limited gym equipment and then the observation/control room. The kitchen was not designed for cooking and acted as a storage area for the vast array of rehydrated and microwavable meals, gels, power bars, water bottles and a method to nuke the food into some kind of edible thing. Heero realised he'd long ago lost any appetite for actual food and ate the supply of never ending "nutritional" and "balanced" meals without really noticing what he was doing. Chewing was mechanical. Swallowing was hard with some of the powdery and cardboard flavoured items.

Recently one large flare had knocked out the systems aboard the Solar and the power had been rerouted to the emergency systems and he'd lived off power bars and gels as the microwave had been unavailable. That week had been particularly hard and then he'd learnt to appreciate the meals that he could nuke that contained lumps that looked like meat and the weird grainy mashed potatoes.

He entered the tiny kitchen area and opened a bottle of water to boil up for coffee. He ripped open a coffee sachet and poured it into a black mug along with the powdered milk that contained calcium but very little flavour and didn't dissolve quite fully. On earth, he'd taken his coffee black , habits he'd picked up from Duo, but the coffee itself tasted so bad that it needed something else in it to make it palatable. He selected a power bar from the box – which was meant to be chocolate and hazelnut but tasted like gravel – and made his coffee before leaving the kitchen to walk toward the front of the Solar and the observation and control room.

"Are you enjoying your coffee?"

"It's the same water soluble crap I have every day," he replied, grumpily.

Heero wasn't sure if it was a glitch in DORIS' system but each morning he got asked the same question and he answered in the same way. He wondered if the previous scientists had enjoyed the conversations with the system but then he was more wary with artificial intelligence. Those scientists had never experienced the ZERO system.

He supposed the female voice was meant to be reassuring, motherly, maternal, but the tone of DORIS sometimes made him want to disable the entire thing. He didn't knowing that he needed the sound of a human voice and that he should not get annoyed at a disembodied voice in a floating piece of metal. Maybe he just found the female voice unsettling as he'd never had any female presence in his life – no motherly figure, no female romantic partner and so the voice sounded shrill and annoying. Yes, there was Relena but she had never been a permanent figure in his life – she was there but he'd not had to live with her.

Coffee and power bar in hand, he arrived at the control room and the door automatically swished open. He walked through and he saw the bubbling activity of the sun through the observation window and the lights of the control panels. The Solar was constructed so that the control/observation room was dominated by a large viewing panel made of the sturdiest glass and shielding technology. It allowed the scientist to observe the massive, gaseous ball that was the solar system's life force without being blinded or burning to a crisp. The Solar's relative closeness to the sun meant that all Heero could see was the activity on the surface and he walked over to the main computer terminal and began scanning the data from the past six – no six and half hours – while he'd slept.

There had been some unusual activity in this month and there had been times when his communication had been cut off and so he scratched his chin, feeling the stubble, and scanned through the data quickly.

"You would be able to communicate with the earth or colonies today," DORIS informed him.

"I don't want to."

"You asked me to remind you to call Miss Darlian to thank her."

Heero looked up and glared at the ceiling panels. He couldn't actually glare at DORIS being that it was purely a computer programme made of lines of code, but he could still try. On the last restocking shuttle, when the kid called Tech had delivered food, supplies and other equipment, Relena had sent a care package containing gum, cookies, sweets and chocolate. He'd never been one for sweet things until he'd lived with Duo and now aboard the Solar he appreciated the different candies and sweets as it provided a change from the blandness of his usual food. In the three monthly restocking visits, his friends had always sent things – books, food, discs, photographs – tangible things that reminded him of the people he had not seen for a year and half.

He tapped his fingers on the control panel and briefly thought about making the call but instead he leaned back in the chair and took a sip of coffee. He should call Relena. It was over a month and half since he'd spoken to her and he could also request some other items for the next restocking which was due soon. She always appreciated his calls. Always seemed delighted even though he had very little to say. She'd babble about this and that. Politics, family, people they knew… and she'd tell him how the grave looked. How she went and put flowers there. That part always hurt and his fingers automatically made their way to the silver cross around his neck. No, he didn't want to speak to Relena.

There was Quatre and Trowa. Always together. He resented that he always had to speak to both of them. Quatre always looked at him in a way that suggested he was close to tears and Heero was long since fed up with that expression. Trowa was easier to talk to but he had to get through Quatre first so he often gave up. Wufei was probably easiest. He would ask about the research and nothing personal. Wufei still didn't know how to bring up that topic of conversation and Heero was glad of it. He was by far the best of them to speak to.

But calling any of them would bring unfortunate reality to his situation. On the Solar, he was in his own bubble. His own world.

In the pre-colony days they would have called it cabin fever, the slow descent into madness due to isolation, but he didn't believe in that primitive concept. It was stupid superstition and he'd never been superstitious. And even though he knew the previous scientist of the Solar, Rodriguez, had been relieved of duties when he started reporting that he had seen his Aunt Frida knitting aboard the Solar. Heero still thought his mental capabilities were in no way compromised by his isolation.

On assessing that there were no dramatic changes in data, Heero picked up his own laptop. It was the same laptop from the war but had been upgraded and retooled while remaining in the same shell. He opened it on his lap, sitting back a little from the control panel, and opened up the same programme like he did every morning. This was part of his routine. Wake up. Ablutions. Coffee and eat. Check data. Open programme. Exercise. Check more data. Eat. Read and research. Check data. Exercise. Shower. Eat. Check data and log the day's activity. Sleep. Repeat.

The programme opened quickly and he saw the small thumbnails of all his previous recordings – small pictures of himself. He selected record and took a deep breath.

"Duo, it has been 615 days and approximately 14 hours since you died. My timings are approximate as the initial crime scene work was done by amateurs and therefore is inaccurate."

He paused. He had started all the recordings in a similar vein – he was sure if anyone played them back that his sanity would be called into question. However, it was his own personal laptop and he would congratulate anyone who could get past the elaborate encryption that he had on it. Only Duo himself might have been able to do it.

"You died on the streets of Boston. You had been stabbed thirteen times in the chest and you drowned in your own blood."

He stopped again. This had been his own way of healing, of grieving, talking through the events. People had suggested that he seek counselling after knowing that he had closed down, grief making the emotionless mask reappear. But he couldn't talk to someone about Duo. He had his own ways. Not necessarily healthy but they worked for him.

"You were nineteen. I saw your body – you were cold and I could see where they opened you for autopsy. I buried you in a cemetery for war heroes in the Sanc Kingdom. I learnt to accept your early death."

He believed he had – accepted that Duo's life had been cut short and avenged that death with his own hands. He'd been fired from Preventer for his vigilante mission and had then thrown himself into studies and a career without blood and guns.

"It has been 615 days and approximately 14 hours since you died and last night I saw you aboard the Solar for the sixth time."


	2. Cold Blue Lips

**Chapter Two**

**Cold Blue Lips**

* * *

**_~ Your cold blue lips they haunt me while I sleep_**

**_They find me and remind me_**

**_It's not blood, it's not tears that makes you real_**

**_It's the memory you left inside of me_**

**_Blue and Cold – Versus the World ~_**

* * *

"Heart rate increasing to 145 beats per minute. Keeping treadmill at current incline for five minutes," DORIS said, informing Heero of his progress.

"Increase incline."

"Negative – programme is required at this level for optimum data extraction."

"Increase incline," Heero repeated, his breathing level and even despite the increase in the intensity of the work out.

"Negative – programme is required –"

"Damn it, increase incline!"

"Negative – programme is required at this level for optimum data extraction."

He could only grunt as he listened to his own heart beats as he continued the workout programme Doctor Hoffman had developed for the scientists aboard the Solar. Obviously not scientist who had undergone severe training programmes – who had spent their childhood being moulded and injected and brain washed. He'd tampered with it before but he was aware that Hoffman required a certain criteria of data and thus his hacking into the exercise regime had not been appreciated. Heero could forget that part of the point of the Solar's research remit was to monitor the effects of deep space conditions on the human body. On his body. And this data was apparently vital.

He wanted something more intense. Wanted to run harder, faster, longer than the specified programme – needed to – damn it, really needed to.

The dreams were getting worse. He was starting to remember them and he'd woken up this morning in damp sheets for the first time since he was a teenager just discovering his sexuality under the skilled fingers and slight smirk of a boy who believed himself to be death. He was in his twenties. It was fucking embarrassing and it was his body betraying and his body had never betrayed him. Thus the intensity of the work out.

Heero needed to stop having the dreams. He pumped his legs harder trying to make the machine respond. Damn the AI. He'd override it again. Do something. Screw Hoffman – he was sat in a research centre in Zurich. He wasn't here.

"Programme ending."

"Continue programme and increase intensity."

"Negative – required exercise completed."

The treadmill began to slow and he found himself walking as it stalled finally to stop. His heart rate was echoing around the small chamber of the room as it started to decrease – the exertion ending. Heero glared at the walls, staring at the metallic box around him to show his displeasure at the stupid system. He removed the electrodes off his chest, throwing them without care in the general vicinity of the machine and walked over to the pull up bar.

"You have completed the required regime, He-Ro."

"I know."

"You have data to correlate and send to Doctor Hoffman."

He ran his fingers impatiently through his hair feeling the slight moisture from his exercise. He wanted to laugh sometimes at the lack of challenge Doctor Hoffman's regime provided him. The man should have met Doctor J. Then the true nature of an exercise regime would be shown. The thought was not pleasant and he realised he'd spent a lot of years blocking out the intensity and strain his body and mind had been put under from a very young age.

"I will send it when I am done," Heero said, looking up at the pull up bar raised above his head.

His fingers wrapped around the bar and he slowly, at first, pulled his entire body weight and just held it there. He was aware that DORIS was still speaking to him and was aware that the AI was telling him to send the data but he tried to block it out, holding himself completely steady and feeling his muscles and concentrating on keeping his body still. He took a deep breath before lowering himself and pulling up more firmly, feeling every moment of contraction in his body.

He needed to keep going. His body could take this and it was better than stopping and thinking. And thinking about his dream. They were so dream-like it was disturbing. Duo had his hair down. That in itself was weird. It had always been off limits, sacred , untouchable – a few shower sex sessions where it was unavoidable had been the only time that Heero had really experienced his hair down and he was fine with that – or so he figured. Maybe it had been a latent desire of his to feel how it felt against his skin, unbound, too damn much of it and…

Fuck. He was not supposed to be thinking about it. He paused – listened for a moment to the complaints coming from the AI system and then took a deep breath before continuing the process of pulling his body upwards, relax, repeat.

It felt all too real. Too close. The feel of lips and skin… a tongue against the column of his throat, a hand down his sides, slowly kneading, a hard cock digging into his hip. He was being tormented, touched, tasted and either unwilling or unable to fight back, he was letting it happen – letting someone control every inch of his body, wring out gasps and half-hearted moans as he moved hands into hair…

His breathing felt shallow and he couldn't for a moment tell if it was from the exertion of exercise or the erotic visions that were plaguing him. He needed to forget. Needed to concentrate on his breathing. His body. His muscles. His heartbeat. He could feel a moment of control sliding back in and he needed reality. He knew, logically, Duo was dead. Remembered how the corpse looked. Remembered the stupid black casket. Remembered the reports and crime scene photographs and awful reality of a grave stone.

Had to hold onto that.

Duo was dead. Seeing him aboard the Solar was impossible. He just had to remember the reality of it all.

Had to remember the argument in the apartment and Quatre shouting that he shouldn't go and see the body as Duo wouldn't want to see him like _that_. Had to remember the drive with Wufei to headquarters meeting Sally Po in the atrium. Had to remember the sickening moments of seeing morgue drawers and a white sheet and the clip clop of Sally's heels as she left him alone in the room.

Had to remember how he looked.

Small. He had looked small all of a sudden. He'd never seemed small.

Heero had stepped forward and his hands itched at his side.

Duo had been short – he'd barely got to 5'6" even after growth spurts and the wars. His body had never recovered from a childhood of malnutrition and stealing and scraps. Plus there was the unknown element of what the scientists had done to them – G had perhaps been less industrious than J at making a Perfect Soldier but Duo had been injected and experimented on with things that were outside his knowledge. The Preventers had done extensive tests on them all when they'd joined but they were all healthy – if not slightly genetically engineered.

Duo may have been short but had never seemed small. Maybe it was the boundless energy. The constant movement. The fidgeting. His body was a ball of motion and he was never still. Not when asleep even – Heero had learnt that at his own cost. There was a reason they had a king sized bed – he wanted to be able to retreat as far away as possible from him otherwise he might get kicked. Now he'd seemed small. His body seemed thin.

Heero had swallowed as he gazed from the eyes, closed, and the nose and the mouth and cold blue lips. The braid had snaked from the back of his head and down the side of the gurney and had seemed duller, a darker colour than it had seemed in real life.

His eyes had taken in the throat and then the shoulders… he'd never been as broad shouldered as Heero was but his body was toned. They had gone to the gym together after work. They had worked out together. They had jogged competitively around the park. They had boxed. They'd done so much together…

The chest had been the most unsettling image. There had been the lines, now stitched, where they had opened the chest cavity. The pale skin had seemed even paler alongside those harsh lines. And then there had been the wounds. Stab wounds – multiple wounds across the expanse of his skin.

It was then Heero had wondered if it had hurt. Did dying hurt? He'd come so close himself – thought he was dying when his body hit the ground after self-destruction and maybe again after his plummet into the ocean. He'd reached out cautiously, running a hand along the cold expanse of an arm and feeling an old scar.

They'd known every scar on each other's bodies. Heero had blinked and looked up suddenly conscious that Sally had arrived back in the room – he hadn't noticed the clip clop of heels that would announce her arrival and she was looking over the corpse with an expression he'd never seen directed towards him – pity? Did she pity him?

His hand had moved from the arm and instinctively he wanted to reach for the small silver cross that should've been located around that pale throat but it was missing. That had startled him more than anything.

"His cross."

"I'm sorry, Heero?"

He'd looked upwards and met Sally's eye. "His cross is missing."

"It will be among his personal effects. I can arrange for them to be transferred to your possession."

Heero then had realised his tone had been harsh as Sally had flinched from both his gaze and his words. He'd glanced and looked back over Duo's body one last time and then nodded towards the doctor before she replaced the white sheet over him - covering his body.

The drawer had been pushed back in and Heero's body had finally seemed to respond to the shock as he'd seen the tag attached to toe – the man he'd loved tagged and numbered and nothing. He'd walked deliberately out of the room, Sally's voice high and passed Wufei to find the men's room and on ascertaining it was empty, he'd approached a stall and fell to his knees and heaved. There had been nothing much in his stomach to bring up but the sickness was all encompassing and he felt it rack through his body as he'd vomited mostly stomach acid and fluid.

It had taken only a few minutes for the bathroom door to open and for Heero to have heard the soft footsteps over the sound of his dry retching. There had been nothing left in his stomach and Heero had moved his weight back onto his heels and wiped a hand across his mouth as he felt the gaze of black eyes on him. He'd not closed the stall door and used the sides to get to his feet before flushing the small amount that was the contents of his stomach.

It seemed he could not cry but his body had reacted to the shock. To the certainty. To the stark reality of a corpse.

Heero's eyes opened again in the rec room aboard the Solar, his memories fading and his breathing levelling. It was then that he felt a jolt of something akin to fear as a voice broke into his consciousness and through the wall of denial. Into his present.

"Babe, you always work yourself too hard."

His hands were suddenly utterly uncoordinated and Heero found his body in an inelegant sprawl underneath the push up bar, the cold metallic floor chilling his bones as he looked up through heavy bangs. The image was clear but his brain was unable to comprehend it.

Duo. Stood in the doorway. Black t-shirt. Black jeans. Relaxed. Casual. Leaning against the opened automatic door, one hand in the pocket of the tight jeans, the other mindlessly playing with the end of his braid. A smirk.

It took a moment for any words to fall from Heero's mouth and when it did it was only one word.

"Duo."

He spoke it out loud into the air and he only got a slight nod for it before Duo turned, the door sliding automatically shut behind him as he left the light of the rec room. It took a moment for Heero to rouse himself from the floor, pushing himself to his feet swiftly and following though the door. He stopped. The Solar was so small that there was no place to go but either to observation room or his own living quarters. The only other avenue was to go towards the air lock.

"Scan for life form," Heero ordered DORIS.

"Unnecessary. You are the only life form aboard the Solar."

He gritted his teeth. "Scan for life form."

"Cannot perform instruction as it is not necessary."

Ignoring the programme, Heero walked swiftly to the sleeping quarters, seeing where he'd ripped off soiled sheets and wished for a second he had the substantial and familiar feeling of a gun in his hand. He didn't have a weapon aboard the Solar. It was not required and it seemed the most symbolic thing he could do to renounce his old life was to not be armed now he was a research scientist. However, he missed the solid metallic feeling in his fingers.

The room was as empty as it had always been – small, prison like, all metallic walls and cold floors. He took a deep breath and walked to the connecting bathroom to see nothing but the shower stall, sink, toilet – nothing unusual. Thankfully he couldn't hear the AI's protests at his lack of sense as he stood in the small confined space.

It was clear. It was Duo. Not like the first few brief moments of seeing him. They were all vague, small things that he'd seen out of the corner of his eye – the braid whipping around a corner, a hand reaching out, a shadow, his body moving just too quickly out of the periphery of his vision. This time it was all too clear.

Heero glared at the man in the mirror seeing the calm exterior that looked back. His breathing had returned to normal despite the activity and he slowly, rationally, tried to reason how he was seeing this so clearly. Death was death. He had no belief in afterlife – no belief in religion to comfort him despite the small silver cross around his neck.

That's what he had to remember aboard the Solar. The reality of death. The knowledge that Duo was not aboard the Solar but in the ground in Sanc.

Heero removed his workout clothes as he felt his body return to normal and any elevated heart rate had returned to its standard beats per minute. He turned the shower on, stepping in to a frigid temperature to chill his skin and stop any lingering feelings. He was used to harsh conditions – remembered the lack of temperature in the labs and training facility during his time with J. Remembered worse places when travelling with Odin.

He slowly turned up the temperature to a more pleasant milder warmth and found one his hand supporting his body weight, the cool metal against his own body heat. His showers were usually efficient and rapid but the disturbing image of Duo aboard the Solar – casual, that husky voice, those tight clothes - combined with the sexual dream were causing him to pause.

He tried to concentrate on simple things. His own breathing. His heartbeat. The way the water fell down onto his skin but soon his eyes slipped shut and the warm water sluiced over muscles, scars and skin gently, warmly and resistance to long denied feelings was slipping.

His hand began to slide down his body, fingers tracing a nipple, slowly, teasingly downwards to the defined abs and then lower to dark hair. He'd repressed sexual feelings for so long both before and after Duo. J had never felt it necessary to share information on sex, hoping that his training and his near brain washing would never allow Heero to feel need, want, _desire._ Duo had undone that.

And after… he'd repressed it even harder. Now knowing pleasure, knowing the slow, hot and sweaty and the fast, impatient and "fuck me right now" sex, Heero had tried to ignore all bodily desire. He'd hardly masturbated since he started living aboard the Solar. Tried to block it out as it felt wrong to fantasise about someone who was dead.

This time his mind seemed too clouded to consider whether it was wrong but instead provided memories and images. Duo behind him, lips on his neck, a spot in the juncture of his neck and shoulder that he seemed to fixate on – a bite and a pull of skin, tongue lavishing attention on the slight wound. It was the Preventer showers – after hours, no one around, after a long gym session and he felt the body behind him, so close but not quite touching. A slight husky tone as lips travelled upwards to ear.

"Want me to stop?"

He'd never had the power to say no. Duo had effectively ripped up his self-control through years of prodding and teasing and _making _him want things. The public setting did nothing to inhibit them – maybe they wanted to be caught – sometimes Heero wondered if they had.

His hand had drifted to his hard cock, slowly stroking imagining another hands slow deliberate movements as a tongue ran down the back of his neck, returning to that particular patch of skin and nipping and biting. Heero's eyes were squeezed shut as his hand moved along to the head of his dick and then all the way back down to the base. He started a faster rhythm feeling the pressure of another hand than his own, a slight squeeze, a knowledge that a little roughness was required.

The water was turning colder again on his body but Heero barely felt it as his skin burnt and the proximity of another body became apparent as contact between his back and chest and the brush of contact made him rock backward slightly to meet the hardness that matched Heero own erection. He jolted for a second feeling the contact as it felt so real against his skin but kept his eyes shut, wanting to feel and not think of reality.

The hand sped up, another lower, cradling balls between fingers and that was enough for him. Cum splattered against the metallic shower walls and his body shuddered against the power of his ejaculation. He hadn't come like that since Duo was alive… sparks behind his eyes, white light… the limp feeling of the aftershocks sexual release washing over him.

Heero opened his eyes to see the shower water had already begun to clean the cum away and he steadied himself for a second, both hands against the wall and lowering his head, letting his hair soak under the cold spray.

There was a vague feeling of guilt after the high and he turned off the water, grabbing a towel and exiting the shower, a hand drifting momentarily to the spot that he'd imagined lips and tongue and teeth worrying. He thought nothing of it as he dried his body, slipping into a baggier t-shirt – one of his own and a simple pair of shorts.

The moment of weakness in the shower at least had relaxed his body and the tension of seeing, or thinking, he saw Duo aboard the Solar had gone. He remembered Duo saying something about that during the war – fifteen and cocky and so damn persuasive – something about relieving pressure and increasing concentration. Somehow he felt calmer as he returned to his work. Correlate his exercise regime data for Hoffman. Analyse any changes to the solar activity.

As he left his own living quarters he realised something was not quite right aboard the Solar – the emergency lighting system was activated which meant only one thing. Heero did not need to run but there was something about that knowledge that increased his urgency. He reached the automatic door to the observation and control room and saw everything he needed to know just by looking through the viewing panel. Flares. A large amount of activity. Unusual in the level of violence.

"Status?"

"Severe Solar activity," came the female response.

Heero tried not to grunt as he sat in the command chair and looked at the data, his eyes widening at the numbers and the severity.

"Communication?"

"Unavailable."

"Shields?"

"Fully operational. I have rerouted all power from unnecessary functions to maintain full power."

It was what Heero would've instructed the system to do and he sat back a little in the chair for a second and looked back at the data. The flares had become forty minutes ago. During his workout.

His hand instinctively went to his neck and the spot that met shoulder and he felt a slight raised bump caused by… teeth, the biting down into skin…

Heero pushed the command chair back and ran back towards his own living quarters and returned to the bathroom. He pulled down the baggy t-shirt and looked in the mirror, his back to the mirror and his head turned. And he saw the mark. A bite mark. A hickey. Something that had not been there previously.

That it was impossible to be there.

Unless, somehow, Duo was aboard the Solar.


	3. Due for a Miracle

**Chapter Three**

**Due for a Miracle**

* * *

**_~ I'm due for a miracle_**

**_I'm waiting for a sign_**

**_I stare straight into the sun_**

**_And I won't close my eyes_**

**_Til I understand or go blind_**

**_Stare at the Sun - Thrice ~_**

* * *

The control room was transformed, paper scattering the metallic floor, stuck onto the walls, notes scribbled in the margins of the print outs. Heero sat in the middle, kneeling, a pen poised between his lips as his eyes darted through all the information in front of him. The data was from the previous few months, the data that analysed the suns activity and Heero was finding the moments of the spikes in solar flares, searching for those dates, those times, and when he did, he drew a large red ring around that sequence of information.

After he was satisfied he had identified the most vitriolic moments of the suns activity, he removed the rest of the pieces of paper, collecting them haphazardly and throwing them into his command chair. Usually Heero was neat, it was one thing that it was important to be aboard a space station as the Solar was damn small so there was a need to keep things tidy, ordered, otherwise it was likely to become difficult to move around with ease. But right now, Heero didn't care as he dragged out his laptop, opening it up and sitting on the floor crossed legged with it balanced on his knees. It took a few moments for the machine to load and while he felt tense, an impatience in his movements, he regulated his breathing, tried to calm himself the fuck down. As it was just a damn theory. And theories were easy to disprove with cold hard facts.

It made him remember briefly the school and the war. Things he'd not thought about for damn years but kept on coming to the forefront of his mind recently. He guessed it couldn't be helped. His dreams about Duo had become a regular nightly occurrence, a torture that was getting worse with every passing day and night. As every day, he worked to convince himself that Duo was dead. He'd think about all the facts – think about the days after, the pain, the choosing of a damn coffin with Quatre and he'd accept that Duo had died. And then every night, he'd slip into dreams of him, dreams where they were touching, their bodies slowly moving together, their lips brushing each other's sensually and those dreams were slowly making him lose his mind.

Sleep had never been problematic for Heero Yuy. Even during his childhood, even when Odin was dragging him around nameless cities, he lay down on whatever uncomfortable fold out and counted his breaths, in and out, before he would fall asleep listening to the sound of the TV in strange and different languages. But now he was trying at times not to sleep and while he was sure he could live without it for some time it was unavoidable. And while he wanted to avoid it, he also wanted sleep as in sleep Duo was wrapped around him, warm, inviting, his scarred skin rubbing against his own in a way that brought shots of arousal tingling up his spine and through his body, and in dreams, it was better.

It was not a way to damn live.

The machine had booted up and Heero absently touched at the hickey on his neck, the mark not quite healed despite the few days between the incident as he logged on, using his passwords and getting past his own encryption. The times and dates of the most powerful and violent solar flares were splayed out on the floor in front of him and Heero knew what he had to do as he loaded up the files with his own diary entries, his own log and he picked out the first date – August 18th when a series of powerful flares had knocked out most of the auxiliary technology on the Solar. He clicked play on the video clip, perturbed for a moment to see himself blown up to the full size of the screen, his own voice sounded more emotionless than ever when he heard it on recording and Heero listened to the same few statements. How many days. How Duo had died. He realised then, watching himself back, that it was a fucked up kind of therapy that did him no good as he was still grieving, still not coping or getting over Duo's death and reciting by rote everyday was clearly not making it any better. But then as he got near to the end of the clip, swallowing as he saw his own eyes flash downwards, looking perhaps at the hands in his lap and then Heero realised. In this clip, he wasn't wearing the cross – Duo's cross – and therefore it was in his fingers and Heero's fingers automatically drifted to it around his own neck, instinct taking over.

"I saw you, last night," the video Heero said and the present Heero blinked, remembering how he felt that first time. It was only the slightest hint, the shadow, the whip of a braid but it was after that the erotic dreams had begun and then the other sighting where it all became more and more clear. "You were wearing black, you were a shadow but it smelt like you – the apple of that damn shampoo and I saw your hair as you ran around a corner."

Heero let his eyes drift from himself, from his own morose melancholy tone to the data on the floor to see that it correlated, that yes, the first siting of Duo had aligned with an increase of solar activity. He growled, a little sound of frustration as he had wanted… he didn't know what he'd wanted as a part of him, fuck a part of him wanted it to be real, more than that, he wanted it to be real so badly so that he could touch and kiss and fuck Duo again but then another part of him questioned his sanity and wanted it to be the delusions of a lonely guy in space, grieving alone, silently, for the man he loved.

"I know you're dead," the video continued, "but I know I damn well saw you."

The words were bitter, painful and Heero found it hard to listen to himself but thankfully, that video finished and he checked for the next date of increased solar activity, October 2nd, and found that video. He needed them all to match to believe his theory and so he continued, watching the next video, seeing his own face, careworn and damn exhausted. The dreams had started to get more intense then, Heero knew that, and he saw himself start to look more exhausted as he watched another, and another, until he got to the sixth video, realising that, yes, all the times he'd seen Duo connected and as he watched the final one, saw the despondency in his own eyes and as he finished those sentences, he felt something in his chest that he tried to deny. His hand gripped for the cross, the metal as his theory… his damn theory was correct. All the moments he thought he'd seen Duo correlated with solar activity and that meant something. He just didn't know what.

He made a noise low in his throat, grabbing at the laptop, seeing where it was paused on his face and he threw the machine against the metallic wall, the sound of it hitting it loud and reverberating around the control room.

"He-Ro?" DORIS asked. "You should not throw your laptop."

Heero laughed as the machine was not damaged, only landed so he could still see his own despondent face and he realised he was losing control of the laugh as he curled his body in on itself, wrapping his arms around his knees and continuing the laugh. He was being told off like a child by a damn AI and he found that fucking hilarious and his laugh suddenly became breathless, turning into something more like a sob as he looked at the laptop, the data and the realisation that he'd figured it out.

"He-Ro, if you continue acting this way I will be forced to call Dr. Hoffman."

He felt for his face, for the moisture around his eyes and he figured that tears were there. And he hadn't damn cried – not when Une called, told him solemnly that Duo was dead, told him that he had died in Boston, when he'd taken that call, detached, fallen to the floor and stayed there until Wufei knocked down the door, checking he hadn't killed himself from grief.

And he hadn't cried when Quatre and Trowa had moved into the apartment, checking he was stable, living with him for weeks and trying not to touch and act like they were together despite the fact Heero saw it and hated them for it. Hated the way Quatre instinctively leaned into Trowa, hated the way their hands brushed each other and how they gave each other knowing looks.

Picking the coffin had been fine, just asserting that it "had to be black" and the funeral itself… while it had been hard carrying the box, carrying it with Quatre and Trowa and Wufei, he had wanted to do it himself even though the ritual seemed ridiculous. He didn't cry as he sat looking on, listening to Une's eulogy, his head bowed and Ray Bans covering his eyes. But now… alone on the damn Solar, seeing Duo, even though that was impossible, he felt the moisture on his cheeks.

He composed himself, unfurling his limbs and grabbing at the data print outs curling them up in his fists to throw away into the void of space and he picked up his laptop, undamaged and shut it down, not wanting to look at who he was making those damn recordings. The broken man he'd become.

"Don't call Hoffman," he told DORIS as he collected the remnants of his research.

"He-Ro, I would advise you contact someone. You are not acting yourself. Let me dial Mr. Winner."

"No!" he shouted at the system. "Call Relena."

DORIS did not say anything else, only made the call and Heero walked towards his command chair, looking at the screen that said "dialling," his fingers running through his hair, checking his face for any signs of his emotional distress. Something he wouldn't damn show. Not to her.

The screen stopped showing the word "dialling" and went black for a moment, a fuzzy staticy sound made until an image appeared and he saw Relena for the first time in months, a smile breaking on her face at his call.

"Heero!"

"Relena," he replied, nodding his head.

Her voice, his name said without the stupid pause was somewhat reassuring and he let a small smile cross his lips as he knew that would make her happy. Make her feel better about him being in space, alone, isolated.

"We haven't heard from you for some time…"

"The flares."

She nodded, her hair flipping over her shoulders and she smiled. She understood. At least, maybe she just believed him but sometimes he used it as an excuse for forgoing human communication as it was easier. Sometimes it just was.

"How's everything?" he asked, the casual opening and she smiled again and then she started to talk.

Heero listened, or tried to his, eyes focusing on the screen, at her strawberry blonde hair, at her piercing eyes, listening to the tone of her voice, the inflections of it, the amount of times she said his name, "Heero" used as though asserting to herself that she was talking to him or something. He listened to her talk about politics, lifting his eyebrows when she mentioned Quatre, nodding a little when she discussed her brother's work on Mars and he looked as though he was interested but his eyes kept on focusing on aspects of her outfit, the pearls around her neck rather than her words. He could see the window from the angle of the vid-phone, could see that it was a blue sky behind her, bright and sunny, and it made him swallow. As he remembered that it was nice sunny day when they buried Duo in that cemetery for war heroes.

And of course, she always knew when she'd lost his attention. "Women's intuition," Duo would say about her, about Hilde, as damn they always knew when their minds had wandered off he'd say, that women always knew when they were thinking about machines or food or sex.

"I wish you'd take a break," she said and Heero let his attention drift back to her face rather than the floral broach on her jacket, the bright blue flower glinting. "Visit earth. Us. Me."

Heero focused on that blue, so deep, and he remembered the way Duo's eyes shone in the sunlight and he blinked as she spoke again.

"You could visit his grave. It would help you. Leave some flowers."

His throat felt scratchy and dry at the suggestion. As he never had visited it, only went there once, when they buried him and he saw no fucking point at leaving flowers, decaying useless things and it wouldn't make him feel better, that much he knew.

"I'll talk to Hoffman. It takes time for a relief scientist."

Relena's face brightened and she smiled so genuinely that Heero almost felt bad for what he just said as he knew he was lying. He couldn't leave the Solar. Not now. Not when he needed to know why he was seeing Duo or whether he was just going damn crazy. But he made her happy. And even if Duo hadn't lied, Heero could.

"I want you to come back to us. We miss you."

He didn't know what to say, nodded. "Thanks for the supplies."

"Hopefully you will collect them yourself next time?" she asked, playfully and he tried to smile at her, feeling false. "You should see his grave, it looks beautiful. It would give you peace."

The idea of peace stuck in Heero's throat as he'd fought a war beside Duo, not lost him then, and it was in supposed peace that he'd been brutally murdered. Peace. He had peace aboard the Solar. Until… until that first hint of his braid, the first moment he felt he wasn't damn alone again…

"I have to go," he said abruptly, "there's some activity."

Relena nodded, her fringe falling in her face and gave him a smile. "I hope you talk to Hoffman soon. I would love to see you again. Properly, I mean."

"Goodbye, Relena," he said, his fingers then moving to disconnect the call as she waved.

"Goodbye, Heero."

He leaned back in his chair as the call finished, looking out at the viewing panel to see the sun furious, his eyes focusing on the violence of its activity. He maybe had lied that there was activity but then the sun had become so vitriolic recently that it wasn't a total lie. And maybe it was because he damn hoped. As much as it was torture, the dreams, the feelings, the thinking he saw him, Heero still wanted to see whatever he could of Duo as shit, a shadow of Duo was better than none of him.

Heero clutched the cross and then got up from the control panel, returning to his routine now his research had been done, the one variation to his daily schedule. He worked out, ate, showered as he damn should, thinking of his research, thinking of Relena's words and thinking of how he didn't care if the grave gave other people peace, it didn't give him and he did his last night time checks, walking the length of the Solar, his feet bare against the metal.

The control room door opened for him and he looked at the data like he always did before he slept, checking the changes and he looked out, almost sensing the oncoming solar storm.

"Please wake me with an alarm if the flares increase."

"How much do they need to increase for me to wake you?"

Heero rolled his eyes, glad that the damn machine couldn't see his childish action. An action he had learnt off Duo. "Any increase."

"Okay, He-Ro," DORIS replied. "Good night."

He walked back down the length, the main lights turning off as he walked, the emergency lighting system coming on. DORIS knew his preferences and he entered his own room, stripping out of his shirt, to sleep in boxers, crawling into the bunk and lying flat on his back, looking at the luminescence of the clock, the green lettering bright in the darkness.

"You're dead," he said out loud, feeling damn crazy as he did, "Duo, you're dead."

It wasn't reassuring as he closed his eyes, regulated his breathing and fell asleep, the sound of the Solar's systems lulling him into sleep.

Though even as he was falling to sleep he felt hands, his eyes fluttering as fingertips traced his chest, tracing a scar from his self-destruction and his eyes flew open, his mouth suddenly dry as he sensed the other person, knowing, knowing instinctively that touch.

"You're dead, Duo," he said, repeating those words even as fingers touched him.

Hands suddenly grabbed Heero's wrists, dragging them to touch skin and his heart almost stopped beating when it came into contact with skin, cold, but fleshy and firm. "Do I feel dead, baby?"


	4. This is the First Thing

**Chapter Four**

**This is the First Thing**

* * *

**_~ This is the first thing I thought_**

**_This is the last thing that I want_**

**_You were the first one I loved_**

**_You were the first love I lost_**

**_This is the First Thing – You me at Six ~_**

* * *

"Do I feel dead, baby?"

The words were breathed out like Duo had done in what was his bedroom voice - deeper, huskier - and Heero had teased him for it a few times . But Duo had said he did it because he knew Heero liked it and Heero didn't deny that. He did. He had. But right now, it was heart stopping, his tongue was lodged in his mouth and his throat was dry as his fingers touched Duo's cold skin. It didn't feel dead but nor was it warm with the feeling of blood actually circulating through veins. It was wrong. Something different.

But there was longing and isolation and confusion. Heero's heart was beating too damn fast as he felt Duo like he'd dreamed, imagined, wanted for so long that when he leaned down, when Duo's fingers were touching his chest and running up to the cross he wore every day, Heero's body tingled against the cold of his fingertips.

"You're dead," Heero said again, his voice uneven as Duo's eyes turned to slits, that blue so dark in the limited lighting and he saw Duo lick his lips unconsciously as he touched the cross, lifted it up.

"Am I? Guess ol' Shinigami can't be killed properly, right?"

Heero shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts but he felt the weight of Duo's body – solid, reassuring, and despite the cold, obviously _there_ and it was all he could do to remember his agony. Duo wasn't Shinigami. The old jokes about not being able to kill death had all been bravado and bullshit. All things he said to Heero before he left on missions, little jokes they'd share between kisses against the wall before Duo would hunt out where he'd left his keys and his cell and leave Heero there. As they could never go together – Une had said that in the very beginning – too much emotion, too personal, too much shit. And always that same thing.

_"__Can't kill death, babe." _

But Duo had died. And Heero remembered that. Told himself about it every day. Repeated it during his stupid little video diary – his therapy that was not working.

Emotions spilled out, all that damn time of holding them in and he felt like lashing out physically but instead he used another tactic. Words. Duo's own weapons.

"You died. I saw your body… you were cold and they'd cut you open –" Heero said in a rush, the words falling from his lips like words hadn't done in so damn long. Or ever. As he remembered that – remembered the heart break of seeing him lying on a slab, his chest carved in two deep v's, his hands cold, those stab wounds and yet Duo's response was a finger over his lips.

"Shhh, babe," Duo soothed, a gentle cold touch to his face from the other hand, dropping the cross back to around Heero's neck, "I'm here… I ain't dead."

The desire to push away was lingering but then Duo's face was close, too close, and cold lips pressed against Heero's and he felt the breath rush from his lungs at the touch - at the feel –and his hands instinctively reached out to touch Duo like he had done a million times before. He felt the softness of that braided hair, his fingers feeling his shoulders, the muscles there and he was losing all grip of the awful reality as his mouth opened and Duo's tongue slid in, teasing.

It was a playful kiss, one that left Heero wanting as he let his hands trace circles over Duo's back. He felt cold through the material but reasoned that Duo had always run cold, always wanted physical comfort, always damn slid over to his side of the bed when they'd lived together, wrapped himself around him and Heero could let himself drift, fantasise, let himself submit to the mouth, to the hands that touched and for those moments Duo wasn't dead.

He'd not died in Boston. Heero hadn't chosen a life of isolation aboard the Solar and Heero's eyes were closed, his hips bucking up into the body above him, the spark of arousal shooting up his spine, his deprived senses taking in Duo like the drug he'd always been. He'd always been Heero weakness, addiction, drug and he'd always been something that intoxicated Heero – made him human, want, need, desire and even in the cold harsh bunk of the Solar, even though Duo wasn't, couldn't be here, Heero kissed back fiercely, kissed back and threaded his fingers through Duo's hair, moaned into his mouth when Duo pinched his nipples, when Duo touched him like no one else ever had.

Duo backed off, sat up, leaning back on his heels straddling him and Heero reached up, running his palms down his sides, feeling the softness of the t-shirt.

"Touch me like you want to…" Duo said, "I'm here… I'm not broken."

Heero wanted to touch him, wanted so bad for everything to be real and for Duo to be more than just an illusion, space sickness or something getting to him through the months of grief and isolation, and he let logic slide, let everything practical he knew and lived for a moment in the stupid belief that Duo was here. That Duo was here as the suns activity was particularly violent and he could check that later… after… after he touched Duo like he dreamed, like he wanted.

He found the bottom of the t-shirt, lifted it up, feeling the muscles there, the deep "v" of his pelvic bones, Duo making a low moan in response and that encouraged him, Heero leaning up as he planted a kiss on his stomach, feeling the abs, licking a little at the skin. It tasted like Duo – _his _Duo, even if he felt cold and the smell of his skin was that mix of spice and sweat and engine oil that he'd always associate with the man he loved. And he let his hands lift up the t-shirt, Duo letting him, moving his arms up to facilitate it and Heero nuzzled at the flesh of his stomach, feeling Duo's fingers tighten in his hair.

The Solar hummed, the light was from the shitty green clock but Heero was forgetting all that, feeling Duo as he'd dreamed of him, running his hands over his skin, forgetting the cold, forgetting the stab wounds and the pain and the funeral. Forgetting all the hours alone, the wearing of his clothes and the cross and all those video messages. Right now, Heero closed his eyes as Duo's fingers reached for his tank, dragging it off his body, the undressing so unlike so many times before. There was a feeling of re-discovery, of re-familiarising and Heero wanted the slow touches, the feel of Duo's body, and when Duo slowly brought their chests together, grinding his hips a little, a shot of electricity drifted through his senses and he dragged him down for a kiss that would plague him in every dream after.

Duo had jeans still on and Heero itched for them to be removed, his hands reaching to the waistband as the kiss, slick, tongue and nipping and open mouthed, drove him to thrust his hips against Duo's, his cock hardening, his body wanting like he'd dreamt all those times and when Duo's lips moved from his mouth, kissed and lapped and mouthed at his jaw and throat and collarbone, Heero moaned, pathetically, more pathetically than he ever had.

"Duo…"

Duo. It always had been Duo. The one who'd made him feel – the one he'd damn loved, his first, the boy with a gun and a priest outfit and a smirk. And Heero panted out that name like a curse. A prayer as his tongue swirled around his nipples, bit down and pulled in tease, his hair falling onto Heero's chest, the movement of the braid sweeping over his skin and tickling and tingling.

For the first time in so long, Heero felt alive, felt each breath from his lungs, felt the stirring of his heartbeat, felt the sweat beads on his upper lip and at the back of his neck, all the things that Duo elicited in his body. His senses were alive and Heero reached out, touching Duo'sskin and then running his fingers to those washboard abs, up to his pectoral muscles and he started, eyes flying open as he felt the cuts, the sutures and he pushed Duo away, hard, hard as he'd done during their electrifying fights – the fights that ended with rough sex and split lips.

He fumbled out of the bed, falling onto the cold metallic floor of the Solar with none of his Perfect Soldier elegance or efficiency. Instead, he'd dragged the covers with him and Duo was looking down at him in the half light, reaching out towards him and Heero backed off, his body hitting the metal wall.

"You're dead. You died. You _left _me."

The words were spat out. Angrier than he ever had. As Duo had _promised_ him, promised him after all the fighting and fucking and pain between them that he would love him and never leave him. And Heero remembered their apartment, the moment Duo wrapped his arms around him when they'd had enough therapy and enough time had passed and he'd told Heero things against his skin, his cheek.

"You got me forever, babe," Duo had said and Heero had tighten his arms around him, pulled their bodies flush as Heero's lips had kissed at Duo's forehead. "Never leaving you."

And he had. He'd left him and Heero felt Duo move, the swiftness he'd had in life and he felt a hand grabbed at his arm and Heero snatched it away.

"I couldn't help it, you know? You think I wanted to?" Duo said, his voice raspy, bitter and he could see the glint of those blue eyes even in the dim light of the glowing clock. "You think I wanted to be sent to Boston? You think I wanted to die coughing on my own blood?"

Heero blinked, looked up. "Huh?"

"I'm dead – I _died_. I left you because of shitty intel and shitty circumstances but somehow… somehow I'm here."

Duo touched him again, this time Heero didn't flinch away completely, feeling the cold grasp of his fingertips.

"I woulda done anything to stay with you," Duo continued, his fingers running up to Heero's face and he felt his hair being moved from his eyes, and Duo pressing into his body, straddling him, the reassuring presence of his solidity despite the cold. "I woulda done anything for us to grow old together, for us to have peace but shit… I was outnumbered and out-gunned."

The words and the touch of Duo's skin was too much but Heero leaned in, wanting… wanting what he was unsure but there was nothing he could do, his instincts drawing him closer, his head leaning into Duo's hand.

"I should've been there," Heero said, the bitterness of his own voice obvious.

As he'd said that, repeated that in the days after. In the aftermath where everyone walked around him like he'd been a ticking time-bomb, while everyone feared he would commit suicide or do something worse. He'd said it to Quatre in the dead of night over whiskey, seeing the blond try to comfort him, a hand on his shoulder, a friendly touch.

A touch that had been warm. Not like Duo's now.

"You couldn't, 'Ro," Duo soothed, "it wasn't your mission. Not your fight."

"I killed them… for you."

He felt Duo nod and pull him closer and Heero let himself be dragged into his chest, feeling Duo's chin resting on his hair and fingers caress his neck and shoulders.

"I know."

"It didn't help."

As it hadn't. It hadn't. Heero thought, naively, stupidly, that travelling to Boston, that walking those streets that Duo had and finding that criminal gang would make it better. That if he found the men that were free, no evidence to attest to their crimes, he would feel better. That he wouldn't feel the gnawing feeling in his stomach and the loneliness and the isolation.

In mission mode, in the unthinking, unblinking, inhuman state he got himself into, Heero could make it all better. That's what he'd thought. That if the men who had killed Duo died, then it would make it better. It did nothing, only made the other's find in him in an old hotel room in Boston covered in blood, sat in the shower stall with cold water spraying over his body.

"I know," Duo repeated softly.

The words, even his face pressed against Duo's cold skin and his confession, his own feelings of failure made him tremble in Duo's arms, feeling himself lose what little control he'd established by pushing Duo away when he'd felt those sutures. He felt the tears he'd never truly let himself shed, just the lightest moisture in his eyes and he buried his head further into Duo's skin, his fingers reaching for his braid, feeling the softness as he breathed in Duo's skin.

"I've gone insane," Heero whispered and he felt Duo reach for his hair, gripping the shorter hairs at the back of his head and pulling his face so that they were level. Duo's eyes were big, wide and dark in the limited light.

"We were never sane, babe."

Heero felt the tears on his eyelashes as Duo gently kissed him, so damn gently that Heero barely felt the press, the ghosted breath and he surrendered fully this time, letting Duo control everything like he had in his dreams – all those dreams of Duo with his hair down, of Duo riding him, kissing him, loving him as he touched him so damn gently. For a boy who'd been raised to kill, who's hands were calloused and had killed so many people, Duo's touch was skittering across Heero's skin and he closed his eyes as the kiss continued, re-familiarising, tongue entwining.

When they split apart, Heero didn't feel the spark of arousal, he wasn't hard, he was something else and Duo helped him to him feet, their fingers wrapping around one another and Heero thought of all those times they'd clasped their hands together during sex, holding onto each other tight as they moved together and despite those thoughts and Duo's proximity, he didn't want to pin Duo against a wall and fuck him. It was something more than that.

And Duo knew. Always damn knew.

"Sleep, 'Ro," he said gently, "I'll be around."

Heero frowned as he got into the bed, worried that Duo would leave, disappear to wherever he damn well went but Duo joined him, his cold body pressed up against Heero's side and his head lying on Heero's chest. His cheek felt cold against Heero's skin but he didn't mind as his hand drifted to touch Duo's back, his fingers tracing his spine and feeling each bump and ridge. Always been too damn skinny. Always never quite recovered from all those years of malnutrition on L2 and always been short, always fitted under Heero's chin when they stood together, when he slept on his chest, in the dip of his collarbone.

"I can't lose you again," Heero said softly.

"You never did."

Duo's fingers had reached for the cross, the one he'd worn every damn day since his death and Heero figured as he'd lived aboard the Solar wearing Duo's clothes, his cross he had held onto him tight – afraid to lose him again. Keeping him alive in his actions. And now that he had Duo pressed up against his side, Heero wasn't letting him go again.


	5. Dark Paradise

**Chapter Five**

**Dark Paradise**

* * *

**_~ All my friends ask me why I stay strong_**

**_Tell 'em when you find true love it lives on_**

**_That's why I stay here_**

**_Dark Paradise - Lana Del Rey ~_**

* * *

Heero tried not to snort or show something on his face that could be classed as insolence or annoyance as he'd been told by Duo he did that. That if he was bored or not interested in what the other person was saying, he had this _face _and Duo told him it wasn't polite to actually use said face. So instead, he kept his expression neutral, tried to stop his attention from wandering but he kept glancing at Duo, sat in the other chair, leaning back on it as he balanced a pen on his nose.

The vid-screen showed Quatre, dressed in probably a very expensive suit and one that looked somewhat rumpled. On closer observation, he could see Quatre had stubble, which seemed odd as well as bags underneath his eyes and he was pale. And he'd always been pale but the blond seemed paler. He had been explaining the business – the rebuilding effort and the financial burdens of the work that Winner Enterprise Inc. was doing and Heero nodded at times, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Duo was now mocking him, sat on his chair with his arms folded across his chest, like Heero, his head nodding, like Heero and his expression serious and oddly ridiculous on Duo's usually smiling or smirking face.

He didn't laugh, gave him the slightest of smirks but kept his attention on Quatre.

"Relena said you were going to contact Hoffman about a vacation."

Heero knew he had to answer this. As he had. Weeks ago. Promised to Relena. And he saw Duo sit up straighter, suddenly not mocking him any more and Heero turned so he could give him a significant look before returning to look at Quatre.

He hadn't spoken to Hoffman about a vacation. He had about the job, about the research, about the Solar and the fact that the flares had become almost constant issue. He'd talked about the fact that the Solar was experiencing issues with keeping all systems working most of the time and the fact that he was working on emergency systems and auxiliary power for long durations. He talked about his exercise regime and Hoffman had asked why his constant complaints for a more energetic regime had suddenly stopped. But he had not asked for the vacation. He didn't want it.

Duo was now a near permanent fixture aboard the Solar. Some mornings he woke up without him and Heero felt the heart-breaking devastation of losing him again, felt even more keenly when nights were spent in is bunk, kissing and touching and fucking around like they always had. Those mornings he woke up alone on the Solar, it was harder in some ways as he smelt Duo still on the sheets and it was worse than all those mornings he went through the routine, went through the cycles of showers and coffee and wearing Duo's clothes. But he would appear again, his body leaning against the metallic walls, giving him that look that ripped Heero's soul to pieces and they'd kiss hot and hard against the cold steel, feeling the ripples of each other's bodies.

"It's not possible," Heero said finally seeing Quatre's face expectant. He supposed they wanted to see him, he supposed they wanted confirmation of his mental state and how he was coping but he couldn't leave now, his eyes shifting towards Duo. Not when he had him back. "The solar flares and activity have increased recently. It's going to be difficult for some time."

He said it with authority and Quatre nodded. "We miss you, Heero. We all do. And maybe we all need to be together again to remember him," Quatre spoke softly, his eyes full of compassion and maybe there was a slight glint in there. Unshed tears.

And Heero remembered those days after, when Quatre and Trowa lived in their apartment, days spent under their watchful eye and late night conversations. He knew Duo and Quatre had been close. Knew it as Duo spoke to him via long vid-calls. Maybe it was because Quatre was more like Duo. That he talked a lot and smiled and laughed.

One night in the aftermath, Heero had decided that the bottle of fine aged whiskey was a good idea, grabbing it from the liquor cabinet and pouring it into a glass. He'd never really drunk it when Duo was alive but that particular day had been the damn funeral arrangements with Heero sat looking despondent as Quatre sat with him and Une who was making sure that it was done to Preventer specification.

When had Quatre joined him, when Quatre drank with him, they had talked about Duo. Talked about him as Heero hadn't done as talking about him in the past tense had been too damn hard. And Quatre had told him then, words that he thought Heero would react to with anger as he murmured them and then looked up, wide eyed, expecting some violent action from Heero.

"We kissed… once," Quatre had said his voice low and quiet, looking up into Heero's eyes, shaking his head, his blond bangs getting in his face. "It was when… things were difficult between you," he clarified then and Heero had been able to tell that Quatre had feared some repercussions for his actions even if they had been a long time ago. Even if Duo was now dead.

Heero had known there was a difficult time between them and while in Duo's death he had sugar-coated their relationship - undoubtedly he had - he hadn't even been angry with Quatre then.

"Was it during my douchebag stage?"

Quatre had blinked, his big eyes puzzled and confused and then he saw there was a slight smile on Heero's face.

"When was that?"

"The years between birth and seventeen," Heero replied, a small snort in amusement, "according to Duo anyway."

That memory filtered through aboard the Solar even though it seemed a long time ago now. Even though he wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that Quatre had once kissed Duo, even though that memory didn't matter now as Duo was aboard the Solar. As Duo was here, sat forward in his chair, his head perched on his hands as he watched the exchange between them.

"I remember him," Heero said with vehemence, "I remember him every day."

"You don't have to do that alone, Heero," Quatre's voice had got higher in pitch.

"I'm not."

The words spilled out and Quatre's brow shifted up, his eyes narrowed, and his face was serious. "Heero…?"

"He's here with me," Heero said and he saw Duo exhale a breath as though he was expecting Heero to blurt out everything, "every damn day since his death. I don't need to remember him with you."

Quatre looked hurt. That look that Duo had called his "kicked a puppy" face and Heero did feel guilty for a moment, a brief moment before he didn't.

"Take a vacation. Talk to Hoffman," Quatre said, his voice steely and for a brief moment that boy he'd fought on the edge of madness came to Heero's mind, that boy who was willing to kill _him, _the boy that had nearly killed Trowa.

And Heero remembered that he had been a Gundam pilot and Heero had never underestimated him despite his somewhat innocent appearance. As there was a tactical mastermind hidden underneath those blue eyes and blond hair. The suit didn't disguise that.

Heero wanted to spit back that he didn't take orders now – that he wasn't even a Preventer and not even Une had any say. Though Hoffman was his boss he had ignored him plenty of times as there was an agreement, as long as though the research was continued, as long as the work was being done, Hoffman did not care if Heero fucked around with the tech, if he tinkered with DORIS to get to his own specifications but he hadn't taken orders since Une fired him. Since Wufei brought him back from Boston in detention, his hands cuffed due to regulation and Wufei fitting them with an apology on his face for this discomfort. Since Une had told him it was insubordination and he should've been arrested, not just fired, but then the storm cloud he left under was enough.

"Quatre," he murmured, his voice pleading. He didn't have the skills to argue with him as Quatre was a negotiator, a businessman so damn clever with words that Heero could only try a different approach. Appeal to Quatre's more sensitive side. "I will. Not now."

The blond man sighed. "I just want to see you again. We all do. We lost Duo and it was horrible and it felt like a part of us is missing. I don't want to lose you too."

"You won't."

"I should go," Quatre said, his eyes looking off to the side with a weary voice. "No rest for the wicked, right?"

Heero nodded and reached to turn off the connection, his fingers pressing lightly as Duo approached him, his expression showing something as he worried the inside of his cheek.

"You should go."

"No," he murmured in response.

"No… Quat's right, this… whatever the fuck is going on here is not right, 'Ro. I'm dead and they… they ain't. You should go back to earth. Not on a vacation. Forever, you know?"

The words made sense but Heero couldn't take them, standing up and putting their faces level, looking into Duo's intense blue eyes.

"I'm not having this conversation. I can't…"

"Heero?"

Suddenly, another voice broke through and he turned back to the screen to see Quatre was looking concerned and he swallowed realising that he heard _something_.

"Who were you talking to? It wasn't the AI…" Quatre's voice was full of concern. "Are you okay, Heero?"

Heero couldn't damn well deal and slammed his fist down on the control panel, cutting off the connection abruptly and ignoring it when the sound of the call coming through again was heard.

"He-Ro – call from Mr Winner."

DORIS was saying it over and over again.

"He-Ro – please tell me to connect the call."

The sound of DORIS, telling him over and over again, was ringing through Heero's head and Duo reached to touch him and he jerked his arm away harshly, the move violent enough to make Duo stumble back into the console and Heero stormed out of the control room, hearing the voice of the AI loud in the tinny metallic corridors.

"He-Ro – please tell me to connect the call."

"He-Ro… He-Ro… He-Ro."

His name was repeated the way DORIS did with that weird inflection and he was at his room, slamming his fist against the panel to open it as he heard Duo's footsteps behind him, his bare feet on the metallic floor.

"Heero!" he said and Heero stepped into his room, locking the door behind him from the inside and making it impossible for Duo to enter through the steel.

He could hear the hammering on the metal, reverberating against the panel and he sat against the cold door, drawing up his knees as fuck, he should not have acted like that as… DORIS could contact Hoffman about his erratic behaviour. Hell, Quatre could and shit, that would mean a one way ticket back to earth, back to a world without Duo, one where he'd drift and live and breathe but not be alive. Not like he was now, aboard the Solar, spending nights wrapped around Duo's body, spending days with him smiling and helping him with exercise regime, him sitting beside him during his hours monitoring data and all of that meant he wasn't alone. He couldn't go back to earth.

"Heero…" Duo said, his voice distant and Heero listened, closing his eyes and his fists balled up. "Let me in…"

Above the sound of Duo's voice, he could hear DORIS and the chant of his name "He-Ro" repeated and he wanted… he wanted the life that he and Duo had meant to have.

They'd meant to have this life where they worked side by side, carpooling to the Preventer HQ, Duo talking about some sports scores with the janitors and the security guys. They were meant to come home at the end of the day, make dinner, go to the movies, have hot sex every few nights and that was meant to be it. They'd fought their wars at teenagers, they'd done everything for this damn world and future and it was meant to be perfect afterwards.

And Heero remembered it wasn't – he'd had his "douchebag stage" as Duo referred to it, they'd had fights and Duo had stormed out and they'd pushed and pulled at each other but it had been them together. He couldn't go back to earth. Couldn't go back to a home that wasn't a home. L1 wasn't either, neither was anywhere he'd travelled with Odin but the Solar was. As Duo was there. Where Duo was… that was where Heero belonged. And shit, now that information would get back to Hoffman they would try to remove him. Like they'd done to Rodriguez.

"No," he murmured, his brain thinking through everything, he knew the Solar like he'd known his Gundam, known every inch of it and he knew there was a way of him staying aboard the Solar forever.

He stood up, opened the door to see Duo there, frustrated, his eyes pleading. "Please, 'Ro, you should listen to them… you can't stay up in space forever and shit, I'm dead. I _died_. You need to get over me and this is nice and all but this isn't normal. It isn't right."

Heero only grabbed for Duo, dragging him into the room away from the prying eyes of DORIS .

"I won't lose you again," he said sternly and Duo pushed at him, pushed at his shoulders with more force than Heero anticipated and he remembered in that moment those explosive fights and the way Duo's eyes would look so piercing and intense. And in those moments he knew that while Duo had this whole happy-go-lucky friendly persona, that Duo was more than that – he had been Death, he had been a Gundam pilot and he had had no remorse.

"You already goddamn _lost _me, Heero! You need to go back," Duo said, his eyes wild, his head moving with each word, that braid moving in an hypnotising way. "You can't live like this! You need to let me go."

Heero growled low in his throat. As he'd never let Duo go. He glanced down to his clothing choice, seeing that he'd selected an old t-shirt of Duo's – a skull pattern with cursive script saying "Carpe Diem" and roses. Then there was the cross that he'd worn every second, every second since Wufei came into that Preventer bathroom where he vomited his guts out, stopping when that cross was handed to him and secured around his neck, the cheap piece of jewellery his most obvious connection to the man he loved.

"I tried. Don't you think that I did?"

Duo shook his head, his braid whipping and the end hitting the metal walls with a small "thunk". "No you didn't. You used this place as a shrine to me or something. A place where you didn't have to goddamn deal. That you didn't have to see the other's as oh shit, you'd remember I'm not here, right? I know you, Heero Yuy, I know you better than you know yourself."

They stood then in silence, staring each other down like so many arguments in their own apartment where neither of them would back down as they were both too goddamn stubborn. Always had been. Until Heero spoke.

"I miss you," Heero said after a pause and he felt his hands were in fists and he hated himself for his bodies automatic response but that was how it always was. That his body had been honed for violence and that Duo had taught him through patience and love, it wasn't just a weapon. But that response still surfaced and Duo reached for one of his fists, curling his fingers around his.

"I know… and you can miss me forever but you need… 'Ro, you need to fuck around or drink too much or do something to forget me a little and realise that you _can_ love someone else."

The idea made Heero gasp as he couldn't imagine fucking someone else or touching someone else, lying in bed next to someone else but Duo's fingertips reached for his jaw and he forced him to look into those blue eyes that haunted him even when he wasn't haunting him literally aboard the Solar.

"Take a break. Go to earth. Please…for me?"

The pleading tone in Duo's voice made Heero nod, a short small nod but a nod nonetheless and he saw Duo breathe out a deep sigh.

"I'll contact Hoffman… maybe I do need to be relieved…"

Duo gave him a smile as Heero moved and wrapped his fingers tightly against Duo's cold skin, pushing him with his hips towards the metal as DORIS continued the words "He-Ro", heard distantly through the doors. DORIS said his name all damn wrong but Duo didn't as he pressed his body tight, as their chests and groins bumped into one another. As Duo whispered "Heero" and "baby" and "'Ro" against his lips as they made love.

Heero forgot about his pretence, his lies as those lies didn't feel as harsh when his mouth was pressed against Duo's. When their bodies moved against each other and Duo wrapped his legs and arms around him, tight, as they slowly reached completion together, savouring the moment of climax in slow kisses and touches in lazy circles.

As Duo said he knew Heero better than he knew himself but Heero had changed since Duo's death. And he was a desperate man willing to do anything to keep his lover alive – save him like he hadn't been able to do in Boston.


	6. Not the Sun

**Chapter Six**

**Not the Sun**

* * *

**_~ Please don't be technology_**

**_So I can turn off your love_**

**_Like some cold machine_**

**_Not the Sun – Brand New ~_**

* * *

The tablet was in Heero's hand as he sat in the middle of the pile of boxes. DORIS had asked him what he was doing some time ago and he'd answered.

"Inventory," Heero had said in a clipped tone.

It was inventory but there was a reason for his actions, for him to be sat on the floor in the tiny kitchen space and trying to work out what quantities he had. He was doing calculations in his head quickly, his face in a serious line as he tapped amounts into the touch screen, working out what supplies the Solar had left.

Due to the remote location of the Solar and sometimes it's inaccessibility - there were plentiful supplies aboard the ship. And while there was a regular supply dump every three months, this was for "new" things to try and restocking. It gave the current research scientist a break from the monotony. There was only so many bad meals with lumpy grainy mashed potatoes that a guy could eat. So it would be replaced with rice or pasta. Something equally as boring after a few weeks.

So even though Heero was due a supply run in three weeks' time, he still was able to figure out his supplies, work out some rations and figure out how long he could survive aboard the ship once…

He growled low in his throat, gripping the tablet a little harder than he needed and almost damaging the outer casing as Duo had been absent for a few days as the solar activity had diminished and he knew that a relief crew were being sent and he knew he had little time to do what he needed to do. But this was a brief distraction, this was something he could do before he needed to. And it was a normal regular job. Heero needed to know his supplies, needed to know what the Solar contained and he hadn't done inventory for some time. Not since Duo had reappeared.

"What'cha doing?"

Heero glanced up to see Duo stood in the doorway.He'd propped open the automatic door with a box of bottled water and Heero felt his heart beat quicker as he'd missed Duo in the last few days. But then he also swallowed as that meant…

"He-Ro – intense activity. Please report to the Control Room."

"I was doing inventory," he said, pushing himself up with the finesse of his well-honed body, "but now, no."

He brushed past Duo, stopping for a moment to reach and touch his cheek, his face, move a stray bit of hair from his eyes.

"I missed you," he said and the words felt heavy on his tongue.

Duo leaned into the touch. "Yeah, but I always come back, right?"

The smile, that smirk, made Heero brush their lips together even as the main lighting dropped out, darkness now taking over the Solar until the backup auxiliary power came online a few moments later.

Heero gave a little nod in Duo's direction who just waved. "Yeah, I know. Work."

Yet as he walked to the control room, he felt a prickling of the hairs at the back of his neck and a sensation of suspicion. It was confirmed when he entered the control room to see no major solar activity, nothing to have brought on the auxiliary or back-ups and he turned back towards the door as it slid across, meeting Duo's eye briefly before it locked, ominously, loudly and Heero realised that the stupid AI had tricked him.

"He-Ro," it said, DORIS' voice louder than usual and Heero glared up at the control panel. As he had tinkered with DORIS to his own specifications and it sounded like it had been undone. And only one person could do that. "Dr. Hoffman ordered me."

His glare, ineffective was levelled at the screen where Dr. Hoffman's face appeared, his beard and glasses, his hands holding up his head.

"Heero," he said with his commanding voice and though he was tempted to turn, reroute the door wiring and cutting off DORIS and Hoffman's intervention, he only clenched his fists and walked over to the command chair, each step dragging.

"You are being relieved. There is a crew on their way. Your friends asked to pilot."

Heero heard the tone, the tone of a man who had stood at the front of lecture halls, in front of his peers at conferences and had the world listen to him. He reminded him vaguely for a moment of a politician, a political leader, some general and the shadow of Treize Khushrenada surfaced in Heero's mind before he banished it. He'd taken enough orders in his life – from Odin, from Dr. J and from Une and he wasn't doing it now.

"Who?" Heero gritted out.

"Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton."

He nodded in response. Figured. Wufei had the Preventers still – he was still necessary for peace whereas Quatre and Trowa could just leave and he saw Hoffman sigh.

"You are being relieved for your own good, Heero. DORIS has reported your behaviour… and Mr. Winner confirmed that to me after your last call."

"I- " he began but Hoffman stopped him.

"You've been seeing Duo, correct?"

There was no point in lying as the doctors harsh eyes glared and he saw Heero shift in his seat. "Yes."

"I think you are fully aware that he's dead, Heero."

His fingers reached up for the cross around his neck, holding it tightly and feeling the imprint of the jewellery in his palm. There was one character trait he'd been accused of many times, his stubbornness and tenacity and he was not going to back down. Duo had told him that, smiling at him, pushing at his hair. "Too damn stubborn, 'Ro," he'd whisper. Even now. Now when he wasn't going to let him go without a fight.

"It correlates," Heero said, drawing out his words carefully, "the moments of Duo's appearance with intense solar activity. I can provide you the data."

Hoffman didn't look angry, instead, he seemed to lean further forward, his eyes were gentler now and sympathetic. "I'm sure you have the data, you are an excellent scientist, Heero but that doesn't alter the fact, Duo Maxwell died and you have been alone on the Solar for a long time. This has happened before, you remember Rodriguez?"

"Yes," he answered sharply, anger bubbling under the surface as he saw that sympathy. He was being treated like he always had since Duo died – like he was vulnerable, a ticking time-bomb that may explode and Heero hated that, hated it so damn much as he didn't want people to look at him like that. "But he didn't _feel _her."

"Heero…?" Hoffman questioned, his voice trailing off and Heero shook his head.

"Never mind."

He didn't need to tell Hoffman that he wasn't just seeing Duo. That he was "feeling" him and not just feeling him in a vague sense. That he was feeling him in full 3-D. Touching his cool skin, mouthing his throat, kissing him like he damn well dreamed of for so long. Hoffman didn't need to know their nights in sheets, the fact Duo was beside him most times and he looked up from the screen to see the activity was not very violent and he scowled as Duo had been here, today.

He'd stood against the doorway, watched him do some inventory and smirked at the great Heero Yuy being reduced to menial work but then if there was no violent activity and this had been a ruse… Heero shouldn't have seen Duo. A sickness surfaced in his gut as he figured what Hoffman knew, the logical side of Heero's brain knew – that Duo was dead and buried in the ground in Sanc and this was not real.

But as he clasped at the cross, as he wore that faded vintage t-shirt, he didn't care. As he would be relieved by Quatre and Trowa, taken back to earth to the apartment that he and Duo shared and he would be expected to move on or maybe grieve more publically to make them all feel better but whatever, he would back on earth and without Duo.

"How long until they arrive?"

Heero was looking down at his knee, avoiding Hoffman's gaze, and he glanced up through his heavy bangs as the man sighed.

"You have the day. Please do your final data checks and reports. I have Schwartz relieving you. Please put together any information he may require into the logs."

The orders made sense and Heero nodded as he could understand those orders. Even though he wouldn't be following them. Or he would be doing the final data checks, the final reports but not because Schwartz was relieving him. Because of what he would do.

"May I ask how long you've been seeing him?" Hoffman asked quietly. "Obviously we'll do a full psyche eval once you get back to earth…"

Heero blinked and remembered now it was two months, two months since the first sighting and in that time Duo had become more real, more _his _and he wouldn't give that up.

"Two months."

Hoffman made a small noise but his face didn't show any hint of surprise in his face. If he had been shocked when he spoke his voice was level, his tone monotonous, he supposed Heero had always liked Hoffman as he seemed alike Heero in many ways – analytical, logical, serious and that was something he could understand.

"Do what you need to do, Heero, DORIS will assist you. I will see you in a few days."

With that, the connection cut off - maybe Hoffman knowing that he needed a moment to process as he sat in the control room staring at the sun through the glass panel, swallowing thickly at the thoughts of what he was going to do. As he should say goodbye but first, he needed to set it all up.

"He-Ro – do you require my assistance?"

"No," he answered, getting up from the command chair. "I'll do this alone."

He would as he worried that if DORIS knew his intentions then perhaps there would be something the stupid ass AI could do to stop him. Lock him in a room until Quatre and Trowa could arrive and he did not want that. So instead, he took a deep breath.

"I'm going to do a check on the airlock prior to docking."

It was a normal procedure and DORIS didn't question it as he stood, leaving the control room, running his fingers over the panels as he did. The door opened now, DORIS no longer intervening and he walked to see Duo wasn't around right now, a part of him glad as he didn't want Duo, didn't want him telling him that it was a good thing to be relieved. A good thing for him to be going to earth, to spend time with other's and Relena and see the stupid grave. And he didn't need to hear that.

He walked with purpose, mission-minded and he walked towards his room, the small metal box that had been his home for so long and would now be forever. It was stupid, maybe, stupid that he'd stored them away from the AI's prying eyes, that he'd created them out of wiring and circuits long prior to this and he was dragging out a small metal case from under the bed, opening and lifting the lid. He'd given up weapons or so he had tried but he couldn't quite.

Heero smirked and closed the case, walking back out of the small room with intent.

"He-Ro," DORIS said, his name as she had always done, "He-Ro – what is in the case?"

He continued his walk, walking towards the air-lock and he knew that the AI would want to try and block his route but there was a manual over-ride on the airlock just in case it was compromised and the AI had been disabled. As he arrived outside the heavy door, there were two spacesuits and Heero dropped the case for a moment, grabbing one and putting it on, sliding it over his shorts and t-shirt.

"He-Ro, I will contact Dr. Hoffman again. I will call the Elysium."

The words were staccato and if Heero didn't know better, he would assume the AI was starting to panic as DORIS appeared somewhat aware of his actions. He secured a helmet over his head and spoke, his voice calm and cold.

"You can tell them, DORIS. There's no one here to stop me."

And Heero used that to his advantage, pulling the lever and opening it, walking into the zero gravity and closing the door quickly behind him, the case in his hand. He couldn't hear DORIS anymore, couldn't hear anything but his breathing and the beating of his heart and it was a dull thud in his chest as he felt the bliss of weightlessness.

There would be many things he'd miss but he was not spending forever mourning Duo. Not on earth. Not again. Here… Duo was here and Heero acted, opening the case, the explosives, the remote system and he rigged them up near the outer door. There was a glass panel, so damn thick that showed nothing but space, black and reassuring and weightless but he didn't take much time appreciating it. He had forever for that. The rest of his limited life aboard the Solar.

He had calculated, figured everything out that he needed and Heero stuck the explosives to the heavy metal hull. He knew it would do enough, irreparably damage the air lock without compromising the hull of the Solar. And what they would mean is that Heero would be trapped forever aboard the ship.

With Duo.

His task was no different than the war, old habits dying hard and though he'd not set explosives or used his hands for violence since Boston - since killing those men who'd deserved to be shot in the head, their necks snapped and then burning the building to the ground - Heero knew what to do. He accomplished his task with sureness that had made him invincible.

It done, he took one deep breath looking out of the small panel into the blankness of space, his hand against the glass and he closed his eyes.

"The only way to live a good life is to act on your emotions," he murmured.

Odin had said those words to him. And he'd said those words to Trowa and while logical, stone cold facts told him Duo was dead, his heart, bruised and broken, told him he believed that Duo was aboard the Solar. That the activity facilitated it. His emotions told him that Duo was alive and the man he loved and so with that, he opened his eyes again, pushed himself off the outer door and to the inner one, opening it with the manual handle and pulling his body back inside the Solar. He'd dropped the case, left only the small transmitter in his fingertips as he closed the door, removed his helmet and shook out his hair.

"Heero! Talk to us!"

Heero heard that voice, the keening, pleading voice of Quatre and he realised DORIS was putting the call through and the AI had told Quatre his intentions.

"I have to," he answered as he held his thumb just over the button.

"No! You don't _have _to! Duo is dead! Just because you're seeing him doesn't mean he's real! We buried him! Heero… listen to me."

"Quatre," he said softly, "I am going to explode the airlock. You will never be able to reach me. I want this."

"Heero!" Quatre pleaded, his voice raw and rough and he remembered another time Quatre pleaded with him and his thumb was poised against the detonation button. "Come back to us…"

"Heero… please," Trowa added, his voice just as emotional.

"Trowa… I told you to live by your emotions, right?"

There was a small grunted noise in confirmation and Heero looked up to the metallic ceiling. "I'm living by mine… I don't know if Duo's here but I don't want to live in a world where he isn't alive. I'd prefer to have gone insane and have him than not have him at all."

Heero paused and pressed the button, the low rumble of the explosives barely heard through the thick heavy door of the airlock. The outer door hadn't exploded but it was so badly compromised that no secure connection between a relief ship could be made. As Heero intended.

"It's done," he said, dropping the detonator to the floor and falling himself to it, feeling then Duo's arms catch him, exhausted, done.

He heard a muffled sound from Quatre's lips, maybe a sob and there was silence as he looked up to realise Duo was holding him in his lap. Heero smiled. Genuinely. Openly. As he smoothed back his hair.

"I love him," Heero said simply, his eyes looking into Duo's. "I couldn't lose him again."

"Heero," Quatre repeated but it was quiet, pathetic and useless now.

"I'm going to disable the AI and comms. Tell Hoffman I'm sorry. Tell Wufei I will miss our arguments and tell Relena… tell her something good. Tell her I said it."

He pushed himself up then, assisted by Duo and he walked to the control room, hearing Quatre try to plead with him once more. Not to disable the comms. Not too cut himself off forever but Heero didn't listen, the control room door jammed until Heero found the manual override underneath a floor panel, DORIS trying to rebel one more time. Maybe she knew it was done.

"Please…"

Heero now saw Quatre's face, ashen and stricken, Trowa beside him leaning over and he thought of all they had been through together but that was it – Quatre and Trowa had each other and Heero had nothing but the Solar and whatever remained of Duo.

"Thank you," he said, "for everything."

"Heero!"

His name was the last thing he heard as he disabled the comms, inserting a small flash drive, activating it by typing a few simple lines of code that created a virus wiping it out, creating a power surge that fried the circuits and then Heero sat back in his command chair, feeling Duo's hand on his neck, teasing the strands of hair at the nape of his neck.

"He-Ro… you can't disable me. I am necessary."

He smirked, looking up then and he stood, reaching to touch the metal with his fingertips. "You're not anymore."

With that, he sat back at the console and inputted the last part of the virus he had created and DORIS had one more word, "He-Ro" as the system died, the AI that had kept him company stuttering and failing. He took a deep breath, leant back in the chair and Duo then wrapped his arms around him from behind, kissing at his shoulder.

"You know, you should've been relieved. You should've gone back to earth."

Heero turned in the chair so they were face to face and he reached up, grabbing for Duo's face, dragging him down for a kiss, the chaste touch of lips promising all the years they'd have aboard the Solar together. Just them.

"I wasn't going to lose you again."

Duo chuckled, climbing then into Heero's lap and he traced patterns on Heero's chest through the material of his spacesuit. "Stubborn, Heero Yuy. You've never done what's best for you."

"No," Heero said with a smirk, tracing his fingers up Duo's sides, feeling his cold firm skin underneath his fingertips. "You're what's best for me."

"I never did win with you."

Heero didn't answer, only kissed Duo again, threading his fingers through Duo's braid and losing himself in his cold lips. He was now stuck aboard the Solar for the rest of his life but a life with Duo, however short, was worth a long one without him on earth.


	7. Epilogue - Always

**Chapter Seven – Epilogue**

**Always**

* * *

**_~ I am with you always_**

**_From the darkness of night until the morning_**

**_I am with you always_**

**_From life until death takes me_**

**_Always – Killswitch Engage ~_**

* * *

The noise of the Solar was continual, a low hum and Heero woke up slowly, hearing the sounds of the space station that kept him alive. He started for a second as he woke up alone and it was a rare thing. He felt for the impression of the other body, turned over and buried his nose in the pillow to smell that Duo had been there recently and it would not be long until he was there again.

Heero rolled over, looked up at the metal above him before he moved to get out of the bed, pulling on clothes, the shorts and t-shirts, and padding out of the bedroom.

DORIS, disabled now for nearly two years no longer greeted him but Heero still half expected it. As he had spent a long time aboard the Solar, his routine had become ingrained and at times, he even missed her high pitched voice and snarky seeming comments. It was as well, at times, that he missed the fact he couldn't make a call but after setting the virus, he had spent hours in the wiring behind the metal panels, disabling everything he could apart from the systems he needed for life and it meant then there was no turning back.

At times, Heero idly thought about those people he'd cut himself off from. Quatre and Trowa had sounded desperate and on some nights he heard his name said in their voices, waking up in a cold sweat to be comforted by Duo, who would hold him tight and kiss his forehead until Heero's heart rate would regulate and he would feel "normal" again. Sometimes they'd just fall back to sleep, Duo's cold body wrapped around Heero's heat or they'd slowly kiss and touch, arousing one another like they'd always known how until they were hard and horny, moving together with practised ease in the tiny bunk, climax slowly building.

He regretted Relena. Not saying goodbye as she had loved him in her own way and in his way, Heero had too. Respected her. And she had wanted to see him again so badly. But he couldn't look back now as he walked along the corridors of the Solar, stopping to make coffee and grabbing half a power bar from his supplies.

The coffee would run out soon, he was making it weak, making it so that it lasted, drawing it out but Heero knew eventually there would be nothing left. The power bars would run out by the end of the month, some of the meals already had no matter how smaller portions he gave himself and he knew there would be a point in the not too distant future that he existed on energy gels and recycled water. He knew that he only had another six months aboard the ship but he thought of that rarely, walking towards the control room, the door now left open, seeing Duo sat on the command chair, his hair sleep mussed, his knees drawn up and head looking towards the sun. Heero looked to the activity, the bubbling boiling mass, the sparks and stutters and flares, and took a sip of his coffee.

Duo knew he was there as he turned a little, inclined his head before he turned back to looking at the sun.

"Lotsa activity today," Duo commented and Heero walked over, putting his hand on Duo's cold shoulder, gently massaging his skin. He was wearing a tank that covered most of his scars, though the hint of the deep V of an autopsy incision could be seen and Heero leant down, kissing at Duo's cheek, the cold of it against his lips.

"Yeah," Heero answered, "it's increasing."

It had been for some time. After he'd blown the airlock, Heero had still had times where Duo disappeared, where he ached for him, his touch, lived his life in his little rituals that were his attempt to keep him alive but recently, the past six months, Duo had not been absent at all and Heero knew that as the sun's activity kept increasing, there was a chance he'd never lose him again. Not even for a few hours.

"Yeah, kinda impressive."

Duo's tone was wistful, sad, as they'd argued recently at Heero's actions, at blowing the airlock, as Duo knew his rations would run out eventually and he knew it was now sooner rather than later. He knew Heero was losing some muscle tone, some body weight as Duo noticed damn everything and Duo also knew that he was a constant presence aboard the Solar now.

It was, Heero thought, the way the sun was a roiling mass of colours shifting in front of his eyes, the way he could see specks and dots of flares in the viewing panel and he took a sip of coffee before putting it down on the control panel, the screen showing data and read-outs but unable to show faces or people.

He grabbed for his laptop, opening up the programme and dragging across the other chair in the control room, Duo watching his actions out of the corner of his eyes. Heero opened up the recording, pausing and looking at himself before he hit the button and spoke.

"Duo, it has been approximately 1,400 days since you died," he said, his mind no longer calculating exactly those days, "but you came back to me."

It was all he said, closing down the programme again as Duo got up, taking the laptop off Heero's knee and grabbing hold of Heero's wrist tightly, forcing him to his feet.

"Always gonna come back for you," Duo said softly, his eyes dark and intense.

Heero nodded, leaning into him, pressing their foreheads together, their hair mingling together. "I always will too."

In the control room of the Solar, in a world isolated from everything, Heero held Duo tight to him, kissing him with open mouth and tongue, making love to him on the panels under the gaze of the volatile sun.

Heero did not have much time left with his supplies but he had been given more time with the man he loved and that was worth everything – the doubts about his sanity, his gradual starving to death and losing contact with everyone he ever cared about.

As his fingers entwined with Duo's cold ones, their bodies joined, Heero breathed out a "I love you" and closed his eyes, living in that moment, in the shadow of the sun as he had been given more time with Duo and that was all he'd ever wanted.

* * *

_A/N: I usually just say a little "thanks for the reviews" at the end of fics but this time I am going to say a little disclaimer. The point of this fic was that it was ambiguous and open to reader interpretation. I wrote the fic purposefully so it could be read that the solar flares were making Duo appear or that Heero had made up the interactions due to his isolation and grief._

_I have my own opinion as the author but my intent was that the reader could decide how they wanted to read it. If you do want to know what I thought, you can PM me but I hope that you take it whatever way you want – either that it's a story of true love overcoming even death or the story of one lonely man's grief. Either way, I'm glad that people read this one – it was very close to my heart and was a very difficult write but one that never quite let me go. I appreciate all of you, as always. _


End file.
